ABSTRACT
The world population exceeded the seven billion mark on March 12th 2012 and
continues to grow at an alarming rate according to the United Nations Population Fund
(UNFPA, 2011). This increase in the world population leads to an increase in the
demand for housing establishments, work areas and recreational facilities. This
demand is drawn from the sense of comfort and safety that human beings feel within
the buildings.
It has thus been estimated that the amount of time that people spend in the built
environment ranges from about 80% to 90% (Chanter & Swallow 2006). This means
that people spend more time indoors than outdoors. It therefore implies that there is
need to take care of the space within, much more than the subsequent space without.
The focus of this study was to demonstrate the importance of taking care of the space
and how best to carry this out in a sustainable way more so for private institutions in
order to both reduce building running costs in the long run and increase the efficiency
of use of the space. The study had as its null hypothesis that maintaining building
sustainably has no effect on the building maintenance practices in the institution in
question.
The objectives of the study were to identify the building operations and maintenance
practices as well as sustainable building operations and maintenance practices within
Strathmore University, to evaluate the effect of sustainable building operations and
maintenance practices on building maintenance practices in the university as well as to
identify the probable challenges that will be faced when implementing these
sustainable building operations and maintenance practices.
One conclusion drawn from the study is that to maintain a building sustainably, the
building operations and maintenance practices already in place have to be up to a high
standard. The researcher recommends that for there to be success in maintaining a
building sustainably, the institution has to adopt a building maintenance policy that
will act as a plan that will help them to do this. As in the words of Benjamin Franklin,
“failing to plan is planning to fail”.